Tag: Cambodia

General, Travel

A little bit of chaos

Liz Whitehouse

I have absolutely loved Cambodia,  if the rest of the tour is this good it will be a brilliant 30 days.  Everywhere else has got an awful lot to live up to.  Today we’re off to Vietnam,  which means the monster 10 hr bus journey,  another border crossing,  and the first home stay.

I’m getting semi used to these 6am starts (we can pretend that no sleeping occurs on bus journeys) and I’m starting to get used to the mega bus journeys.  Don’t get me wrong if I could avoid them I would but,  we can’t,  so they’re too be tolerated. There was a little bit of room on the bus from sihanoukville to the border. The road from sihanoukville was no smoother than the road there.
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General, Travel

Bamboo Island

Liz Whitehouse

Today started off in a fairly hellish manner. When Jade and I woke up, obviously on the first alarm we had set, a message arrived asking ‘where is everyone?’ It turned out that a few people had stayed at the party the previous night at JJ’s until the early hours. Two of the girls has got a bit to inebriated, and had split up with some gentlemen that they met there. A few hours later when everyone was ready to leave for the boat, one returned, obviously upset and distressed, which only increased when the other didn’t answer the hotel room door when she returned. We all rang and looked round and tried to form a plan of action. We decided to go ahead as planned with the day, and Lek stayed behind in the hope she would return. She did, while we were all eating breakfast, just making it in time to make the boat trip. They may have had a traumatic experience, but they only lost a few dollars, and hotel keys, so all round, it could have been a lot worse.

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General, Travel

Massages, Jellyfish, Buckets, and Hats

Liz Whitehouse

I have really enjoyed Cambodia, but I was absolutely ready to leave Phnom Penh. I never felt like it was quite safe at any point, there was a lot of rubbish and noise, and it just wasn’t really for me. I am not usually much of a beach person (I am paranoid that my milky white skin that loves to be bright red but frazzle in the sun) but I was ready to relax in Sihanoukville. I have loved how much we have done on the tour so far, but a couple of days to relax and explore at a more leisurely pace is very much welcome.

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General, Travel

Down low and up high

Liz Whitehouse

Today has been a strange day. Good, but strange. A day very much filled with lows and highs. We had our first properly activity free afternoon, which we could go off to do whatever we wanted. It was definitely need after spending the morning at the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng museum.

I was really hesitant about visiting the Killing Fields. Everyone else in the tour was going and I decided that as much as it would be unpleasant, I had a sort of duty to learn about the history of the country, and see first hand what the people had been through. The tour guide lost 4 brothers, his father, and other relatives. He knew a lot about the place (obviously, he was our guide) but also told us how hard it is for Cambodian people, and looked genuinely distressed at points. I know it’s really good money to work as a tour guide in a country where $1 per day is considered an OK wage, but it must be hard to return to a location of such horrific carnage when family and friends lost their lives there.

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General, Travel

It’s gonna be a bumpy ride

Liz Whitehouse

After yesterday’s exciting adventures, experiences, and escapades, a lie-in was needed to recover. While that was welcomed, some of the group’s hangovers were not! Luckily, no big activities were planned to go on. Unluckily, there was a 7hr bus journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.

To say some Cambodian roads are bumpy is an injustice to bumps. There were pot holes the size of cars, and rocks that were nothing short of boulders. No wonder the journey took so long. Well that, and the bus’s mechanical issues at the rest stop halfway through the journey. To add to the bumpy road, we also experienced the first rain burst. Luckily we were on the bus, as it was heavy. Thankfully it released the humidity, and it is no longer unbearably hot everywhere you go regardless of the time of day.

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General, Travel

Angkor Wat

Liz Whitehouse
Sunrise over Angkor Wat
Sunrise over Angkor Wat

Today can be described in the following words: unbelievable, spectacular, insurmountable, wow. I have been waiting for over a decade to visit Angkor Wat, pretty much ever since I saw Tomb Raider (even though it was actually filmed at Ta Prohm, a nearby temple.) It was the first place/thing that was ever on my bucket list, or what became it, and since I decided I was going to travel, it was the bit I was most excited about. The day had a lot of pressure lumped upon it.

Angkor Wat delivered.

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General, Travel

The Moo Crew

Liz Whitehouse

Today was a proper travelling day. No more chilling in the pool, we hopped on mini-buses for 6:45am, and were off to the Cambodian border. Breakfast was strange again. Today there was beef in a spicy oyster type sauce, noodles, boiled fish and rice, as well as more western things, such as chicken sausage. Still not used to having such a big meal at the beginning of the day!

I also started reading today. Finally whipped out the kindles on the bus (there was 6ish hours at least of travelling) and began reading Delirium. I had never heard of it before, but so far it is fairly good. It’s of the same dystopian vane as Hunger Games and Divergent, and is so far better than the latter, and possibly the former in my opinion. On the first journey we encountered the first squat toilets. Not nearly as bad as I had feared that they might be! Ok I am always going to choose a western toilet, but they’re not completely horrific.

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